Description: Sign & Breath is a new critical anthology that takes a different approach to exploring these questions: What is poetry? What defines voice? Featuring a range of contemporary artists, many of whom work across different mediums and genres, Sign & Breath introduces the reader to one page that sings in any genre - prose, fiction, poetry, spoken word, hybrid forms, and song - across diverse traditions.
Rather than define poetry as a genre with conventions, traditions, codes, and modalities, this book features poetry as a faculty that thrums in all written and spoken art. Readers are introduced to a text followed by a discussion with the author about creating the piece, ties to creative lineage, and the definition of voice through their practice.
This anthology contributes to the dialogue among genres which will reframe the understanding of poetry as an aesthetic experience of language. With one page that sings in any genre, Sign & Breath presents a new, inclusive perspective on poetry while two questions remain: Do we have a clearer understanding of what defines poetry? Do we have a clearer understanding of voice?
Brief description: Philip Brady's newest book is The Elsewhere: Poems & Poetics (Broadstone, 2021). He is the author of two essay collections, Phantom Signs and By Heart from the University of Tennessee Press; a book-length poem, To Banquet with the Ethiopians, a memoir, To Prove My Blood, and three previous books of poetry. He has edited a critical book on James Joyce and two anthologies of contemporary poetry.
Brady's work has received the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press; a ForeWord Magazine Gold Medal; an Ohioana Poetry Award; the Ohio Governor's Award; six Individual Artist Fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council; and Thayer and Newhouse Fellowships from New York State. An essay earned Notable recognition in Best American Essays. He has held residencies at Yaddo, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Ragdale Foundation, the Hambidge Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland, Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, and the Soros Centre for the Arts in the Czech Republic. Brady has taught at University College Cork, on Semester at Sea, at the University of Ibadan, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer at the University of Lubumbashi in the Congo. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Youngstown State University, where he founded the YSU Poetry Center and co-founded the NEOMFA. Currently, he is Executive Director of Etruscan Press and serves on the MFA faculty of Wilkes University. For more information please visit www.philipbrady.comReview Quotes: "Sign and Breath is an embodied practice centering on the interconnectedness of bodies and breath, inviting readers into a vibrant collection of voices that engage deeply with personal, political, and artistic histories." -- Melissa Parrish, The Massachusetts Review